Samsung 21"/22" Widescreen LCD

I know there's already a monitor problem thread by myself. But this is kind of a different issue.

I have been researching around about 20.1"/21"/22" and even 23" (which are just way too expensive). And I've narrowed it down to the Samsung brand (very good European/Australian brand, not sure about in America).

I know that every 22" uses the Chimei LCD panels, so that's why they are cheap. Except that the 22" Samsung has probably the best version, the only problem is the backlight bleeding on it. It supports a nice 5ms response with 6bit (but says 16.7M for some reason) colour, and 800:1 contrast ratio (or I think it may have been 700:1).

Anyways, it's a nice size, but now I'm considering getting the 21" widescreen version, due to it having a better LCD panel (I believe it either uses it's own Samsung, LG or Phillips, which are known for their good specs). This means it has a (better) 8bit colour, 1000:1 contrast ratio and a 8ms response (can you really tell the difference?).

It's only 1 inch smaller, and really not that huge of a deal to me, and it's only around $40AUD more than the 22".

I'd really like some opinions and help with selecting, because I like the best of both worlds with gaming (mainly just MMO's, Myst, any sort of RPG's and maybe a FPS every now and then (though I'd really need to update my computer to play the latest FPS on high settings)). And I like to do graphic design, 3D modeling/animation and music production / audio editing / video editing.

That's the main reason I'm thinking of getting a slightly smaller screen with a better, more accurate LCD panel. And I'm not really into the whole Dell, Chimei, BenQ, Viewsonic, etc. type of thing.

Sorry for the long post, I just want to really be clear on what I want before I go spending all this money (23"-24" would be incredibly good, as their panels are extremely good, but they are so damn expensive!).

Thanks. ^^;

I have a 26" Samsung LCD HDTV with a 4000:1 contrast ratio and an 8ms response time with a "Game mode" that speeds up the response time even further. I've never noticed any problems with the display when playing video games or doing anything else. Personally, I would go for the better contrast ratio to ensure better black levels with your monitor. If there's a significant advantage to a couple milliseconds faster response time, I'm not knowledgeable enough in the field to know about it.

Thanks, I guess the answer is pretty clear then. The one with the best LCD panel specifications (i.e. 21").

I could try my luck with the 22" and put up with the backlight leakage and bad black levels, but it just might be better to keep my mind at peace knowing I had a good panel with only 1" less viewing size.

If anyone had any other opinions, feel free, because I will be waiting a few days before I go an order one.

I don't have any problems playing fast paced games with my LCD, and it's got a response time of 12 ms <,<.

Which one you should go to entirely depends on how fussy you are with different aspects of performance.

Response time
Each time a pixel on an LCD is illuminated or turned off, it takes a certain amount of time to change state. That's the response time; for 8ms, a pixel will take 8ms to turn on or off or change colour. This means that "ghosting" can occur in applications or games (and movies) with a lot of fast colour changing on the screen (like FPS games).
You won't notice anything wrong with 8ms unless you play on a monitor with a 5ms response time; then you will start to notice the ghosting if you have to go back to 8ms.
Having said that, 8ms is perfectly adequate for FPSs.

Contrast ratio
The contrast ratio is the ratio of the whitest white to the blackest black the screen is capable of. The format is brightest:darkest; eg. 800:1 is the ratio calculated by the formula: (brightest - darkest)/darkest, or the darkest colour is 800 times darker than the whitest colour.
This has a great effect on the quality of the picture, and I wouldn't get anything less than 800:1.
With a poor contrast ratio, the whites will look like light grey, the blacks will look like dark grey, and the spectrum that you'll see will seem lacklustre and dull.
Beware with contrast ratios quoted by the manufacturer, because they will sometimes use different settings for the hardware between white and black, to inflate the ratio as much as possible.

Colour display
As for the number of colours, go for 6 or 8 bit, but not lower.
6 bit colour isn't 16.7 million colours, it's 16.2, whereas 8 bit colour is 16.7. I'd definitely go for 8 bit colour because I'm very fussy about how fonts render, and they look a lot nicer on an 8 bit panel.
This is probably the least important part of your decision, because it's only between 6 and 8 bit.

Also, Samsung mostly use Samsung panels, and generally they are regarded the best panels (competing with AU for the fastest, but AU fall down in other areas), but they have used Chi Mei panels in some of their HDTVs above 30".

Thanks o_O, once again you've been really helpful.

A lot of the 22" LCD's have Chimei panels, 6bit and 700:1 contrast. I guess the only decent things about them are the 2ms-5ms response times.

I think I will go for the 21" Samsung, as I'll be using it for mainly graphic design, 3D modeling / animation, and a few games (not all FPS, not really into them as much).

I'd rather compensate an inch of space for a far better quality panel.

This is what I am currently using (or was until it stopped working). So I guess the 21" Samsung is still a huge improvement.

Edit: Also, I just wanted to make sure, would it run fairly smoothly with a ATI Radeon 9800PRO 128mb graphics card, 1GB RAM and 2.8GHZ P4? Not for any really hard to run games like Oblivion or F.E.A.R. Just to watch movies, play MMO/adventure/RPG games, do graphic design and all that. All at native resolution (preferably I think).

Yeah, that'll work just fine with your hardware. :p

The only incompatibility the monitor would have with any of your hardware is likely the lack of a DVI input on your graphics card, but you'd still have a VGA input, so no problems there.

Your graphics card has a DVI input anyway. :p

For RPGs/adventures and such, that'll pose no problems. It wouldn't pose a problem for FPSs either. :p
And as for the native resolution, your monitor's would probably be 1680x1050p, but most games won't run at that. I've had a few problems with older games stretching a 1024x768p (or less, but non-widescreen) picture over my laptop widescreen which has a native resolution of 1280x800p; the picture looks like someone sat on it and squashed it vertically, so be aware of that. Newer games have support for most resolutions though.

Thanks.

I know some games I have, do have options for widescreen resolutions, if not they have hacks for it.

What do you mean that my graphics card has a DVI port but doesn't support it? I has hoping that it would.

No I was saying that the only real hardware "incompatibility" that monitor would have with any computer would be the graphics card not having a DVI input. And even that wouldn't matter because the graphics card would have a VGA input, which is fine.

Your card does have DVI though, so it will work just fine.

I was basically saying that the monitor would work some way or another on almost any computer, regardless of hardware. :p

Oh I see, thanks o_O. ^^;